Existing disk drive systems have been designed in such a way that a Virtual Volume is distributed (or mapped) across the physical disks in a manner which is determined at volume creation time and remains static throughout the lifetime of the Virtual Volume. That is, the disk drive systems statically allocate data based on the specific location and size of the virtual volume of data storage space. Should the Virtual Volume prove inadequate for the desired data storage purposes, the existent systems require the creation of a new Virtual Volume and the concomitant copying of previously stored data from the old Virtual Volume to the new in order to change volume characteristics. This procedure is time consuming and expensive since it requires duplicate physical disk drive space.
These prior art disk drive systems need to know, monitor, and control the exact location and size of the Virtual Volume of data storage space in order to store data. In addition, the systems often need larger data storage space, whereby more RAID Devices are added. As a result, emptied data storage space is not used, and extra data storage devices, e.g. RAID Devices, are acquired in advance for storing, reading/writing, and/or recovering data in the system. Additional RAID Devices are expensive and not required until extra data storage space is actually needed.
Therefore, there is a need for improved disk drive systems and methods, and more particularly a need for efficient, dynamic RAID space and time management systems. There is a further need for improved disk drive systems and methods for allowing RAID management, reallocation, and restriping to occur without loss of server or host data access or compromised resiliency.